The Middle East

Did Noah Really Build an Ark?

by Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, 19 March 2004

In the Bible, God tells Noah he has to build an ark and load a
pair of every kind of animal before a great flood engulfs the world.
It is widely regarded as a myth, but could it actually be true?

The story of Noah and his ark is one which sticks in the minds
of children and never gets forgotten.

God warned Noah - the only good man left in a world full of
corruption and violence - to prepare for a great flood. With his
sons he built a great ark and the animals marched in two by two. By
the time the rain started to fall, Noah was ready. The ark was a
refuge until the waters went down, leaving Noah and his menagerie
high and dry on Mount Ararat.

There are many problems with the story. If the story is taken
literally, it would have taken 35 years for Noah and his family to
load two of every animal on earth. And a flood that engulfed the
Earth would have left a signature for geologists - yet none has been
found.

But it is possible to build a much more credible version of the
story based on a different reading of the Bible, on ancient
Babylonian sources that predate the Book of Genesis, and on
archaeology and science.

Broken apart

The traditional shape of Noah's Ark comes from the imaginations
of 19th Century artists. It would have been about 450ft long, and
experts say it would have broken apart.

Even if such a feat of marine engineering had been possible,
there are about 30 million species of animals in the world. For so
many creatures, a fleet of enormous arks would have been needed.

Geologists have also proved that there is not enough water in
the world to cover all the continents, then or now.

But just because the details of this familiar story do not add
up, should we turn our backs on Noah and the ark?

We have to forget the idea that such a huge boat carrying all
known animals existed, that it came to rest on Mount Ararat in
modern-day Turkey, and that a flood covered the entire Earth.

In 1851, British archaeologists discovered hundreds of clay
tablets while digging in ancient Babylon.

It was 20 years later that British Museum assistant George Smith
became the first person to read them. He found the story of
Gilgamesh, which bore strong similarities to that of Noah. He was
visited by the great gods, who decided there would be a great
deluge, told him to make a boat and carry in it the seed of all
living things.

Further Iraqi texts were discovered, showing the story emerged
in Mesopotamia. And in the 1930s conclusive evidence of a huge flood
in the area about 5,000 years ago - the time of the story of Noah -
was found.

Trading centres

What we know of the culture of what is now Iraq gives the first
glimpse of the real-life historical figure behind the myth.

Noah might have been king of a city called Shuruppak. He would
have had a kilt, a shaven head and eye make-up, like the figures
portrayed in artworks created in what was then known as Sumer.

The epic of Gilgamesh says Noah had silver and gold, then the
currency of wealthy merchants, suggesting he was a businessman.

Could this story have provided the inspiration for the holy men
who wrote the Book of Genesis 2,000 years later [while the
Israelites were captives in Babylonia]?

Instead of building an ark to survive a great flood, he is more
likely to have built boats to trade goods like beer, grain and
animals.

All the big trading centres of the era were on the River
Euphrates and it was cheaper to move goods by water than land.
Sumerians were able to build barges about 20ft in length, and marine
archaeologists have not found remains or inscriptions of larger
vessels.

But they believe they would have had the technology to have
built a series of barges and used them like pontoons on which a much
larger boat, or ark, could have been constructed.

Tropical storm

Parts of the Euphrates were only navigable at certain times of
the year, when the waters were deep enough for large boats.

Noah was likely to have waited for the melt waters to arrive in
June and July and, if these had combined with a tropical storm, the
river could have flooded the Mesopotamian plain.

The currents in the area would not have taken him towards Mount
Ararat, but out into the Persian Gulf. Life would have been
difficult, but they could have survived on the animals and beer on
board.

One Babylonian text suggests the ark came to rest on what is now
the island of Bahrain, providing a very different yet plausible end
to the adventure.

Could this story have provided the inspiration for the holy men
who wrote the Book of Genesis 2,000 years later? When they first
heard the story, how could they fail to recognise its moral power,
that if humankind falls short of God's laws, there's a dreadful
price to pay. Behind that moral message lies one of the world's
greatest stories.

And behind that story we can just glimpse a real man, a real
boat and a real adventure.